Age of Adepts
chapter-333

The battle in the woods had reached a climax in a matter of minutes.

On the one hand, you had the merciless hunter, and on the other, you had the fearless prey.

There was absolutely no room for negotiation between the two. It was why this had turned into a battle of life and death in an instant!

No one present could stop the radiant knight with his indomitable power. Even Acteon, with his strange arts and magic, was slashed again and again by Soros. Corpses of bugs were sent flying everywhere. His body of bugs had already been crippled and severely damaged.

However, Acteon seemed to have turned into an immortal after completely turning his body into bugs. It didn't matter how frantically the enemy ravaged his body. He was always able to recover with an endless swarm of scorpions within a second.

Moreover, more and more carcass beetles gathered around Soros as the knight was distracted by Acteon. They had gradually sealed all paths of escape.

Five carcass beetles might not have been able to do anything to a Second Grade knight. In fact, they were at risk of being killed if they showed even a momentary weakness. However, when two or three dozen of them gathered together and formed a wall of bugs, Soros could no longer slaughter them, even if he wanted.

The carcass beetles opened and shut their pincers continuously. Their pincers could sever a thick piece of lumber in two with a single cut. If Soros hadn't formed a resilient energy armor with the use of his runic energy and runic equipment, he would have been dissected already.

However, there was a limit to the runic energy within his body. He couldn't endure long periods of wasteful exhaustion. Breaking out of the siege was his only option.

The battle quickly became increasingly intense!

…………

An odd army was quickly closing in on the river as the fight progressed.

Several large gray bats were silently gliding between the trees and their branches.

With the help of the scouts to guide their way, they hurried towards the battlefield without hesitation.

Mary stood on top of a tall tree along with her eight Blood Knights. They were almost three hundred kilometers away from the fight.

The sly Vanlier was bending his body beside Mary and gesturing at the battlefield as if he was talking about something.

It was thanks to Vanlier's scheme to set out this elaborate bait that the vampires intentionally let Soros go. It was only the allure of a radiant knight that could draw Acteon out of hiding.

However, at this moment, all the actors had already stepped onto the stage. Schemes and tricks no longer mattered. The next step depended only on their power and the ferocity that they brought to the fight!

Thus, Vanlier wisely retreated behind the Blood Knights.

Acteon still raised his head and looked at Mary in her red dress despite being engaged in the battle.

The two stared at each other from a distance.

"The food is delicious… but a too little to share between two." Acteon's bug hissing was sharp and hoarse. It hurt to listen to him speak.

Mary's leathery wings beat behind her back, allowing her to hover in the air.

She looked down at the bloody battlefield and licked her crimson lips. Her blue eyes slowly turned blood red.

"Indeed! This place is way too small! Too small to fit the two of us! What is it? Have you already decided to retreat?"

"Wasn't it you that wanted to find me? I came here today, and you came here as well. How about it? Shall we fight right here?"

"A fight is a fight!"

The two of them were both decisive and savage individuals. They had already decided on a deathmatch within a matter of seconds. Moreover, they had made their decisions with a struggling radiant knight still fighting in between them.

There had never been such a moment where the existence of a Second Grade knight was so insignificant. So insignificant to even be ignored by the others present!

Mary raised her head and let out a blood-curdling shriek. Surging crimson energies instantly enveloped her body.

Her red eyes gleamed with a chilling light as two sharp fangs protruded from her lips. Her tall and slim figure swelled and increased in size. Strange crimson patterns spread all over her pale white body.

Mary opened her mouth and let out a terrifying cry reminiscent of a wild beast. Her slender fingertips quickly extended and turned into sharp and curved claws.

"Fight!"

Her leathery bat wings had unfurled to their fullest. She pointed her finger at Acteon and shouted a declaration of war. She then dove downwards at Acteon.

The Blood Knights behind her also raised their longswords above their heads and charged downwards, enveloped in crimson energy. A hundred vampires followed along with them in their bat forms.

What would happen when a vampire mob clashes with a carcass beetle swarm?

The scene before our eyes gave us the perfect answer!

At that moment, blood splashed in every direction, and severed limbs were everywhere. Chaos had swept over the battlefield in an instant.

The vampires were at a disadvantage in the first wave of attacks!

Their sharp fangs were utterly harmless when pitted against the armored shells of the carcass beetles. Meanwhile, their light and athletic bodies were frail and weak when exposed to the sharp limbs and monstrous pincers of the beetles.

When both parties clashed in midair, only the eight Blood Knights managed to inflict damage. None of the other vampires succeeded in injuring the beetles. In fact, the carcass beetles' pincers had wounded several dozen of the vampires.

The Bloody Sorceress herself was bathed in blood after personally leading the charge. Scores of cuts and slashes covered her pretty face and pale skin. Still, these external wounds didn't dampen her battle spirit. Rather, they caused her to become even more savage and enraged.

When the carcass beetles had charged at her, her bloody claws had stabbed into the wicked mouths of two of the beetles. Her terrifying blood energy instantly corroded their insides and exterminated their lives. What she suffered in exchange were two bleeding and bloody hands!

Her two arms looked as if they had gone through a grinder. Countless cuts of varying degrees were scattered all over them. It was hard to keep track of the number of injuries she had sustained at the moment she struck the beetles.

Now that she had passed through the carcass beetles on the outside, Mary had to face the endless swarm of bugs and Acteon himself.

His body had already merged with the insects. It was hard to tell which was his real body and which were the insects he controlled.

"Kehkehkeh… want to kill me? Can you kill all of these? The entire swarm is my body and an extension of my will. If you want to kill me, you will have to kill every single one of these bugs. Kehkehkeh. Can you do it?" Acteon let out a maniacal hiss as he stood proudly amidst the swarm.

"We'll know if I can do it once I try!"

A cold light reflected in Mary's crimson eyes. She made a grabbing motion with her left hand, and a crimson longbow mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. She drew the bowstring with her right hand as a scarlet, crystalline arrow instantly formed on the bow.

Peng.

A sharp and explosive ring.

The crimson arrow had been on the bowstring the previous second, and the very next, it had already appeared in Acteon's creeping chest.

He looked down in shock.

A short moment later, the ferocious blood energies within the arrow erupted. Red bloody mist immediately covered an area of five meters.

This blood mist was different from the usual mist that had formed from blood. It possessed an astounding corrosive ability.

Rustle.

Bug corpses fell to the ground.

The front of Acteon's body started to peel off. Everything that had been corroded by the blood mist fell to the ground. The beetle corpses formed a thick layer beneath his feet.

However, a swarm of bugs instantly crawled onto his body and his missing parts were quickly reformed. He had just recovered when he was attacked.

"I already said it. You cannot kill me!" Acteon raised his creeping face and showed a smile to Mary, who was standing twenty meters away, "You've had your turn, now it's mine."

The moment he finished speaking, he raised his right hand. A hole collapsed in his palm. Countless tiny flying insects fired from his hand. They fell upon Mary like an ominous cloud.

Mary was a vampire adept with incredible speed and agility in the first place. Such a slow attack would never hit her.

Her body flashed, and a series of strange afterimages floated in the air. She appeared behind Acteon, fifteen meters away, like a phantom of the night. Another crimson arrow shot at her enemy.

Weng. Weng. Weng.

Mary demonstrated the prowess of her eight points of agility. She used her ghostly footwork to its limits and circled Acteon at her highest speed. She dodged the pursuing bugs and accurately put one crimson arrow into Acteon's body after another.

The exploding blood mist always brought tremendous damage to Acteon. His body of bugs was continually missing pieces left and right. The pile of corpses had already covered his legs.

However, Acteon ignored all this damage. He continued to let out those small flying insects. It was almost as if he wanted to cover the surrounding space with these flying bugs completely.

Even Bloody Sorceress Mary couldn't entirely avoid these bugs with her speed. Once they reached a specific density, she would be unable to dodge them, regardless of which direction she went in.

The crimson patterns on her armor repeatedly glowed and flashed. The flashes meant that it was enduring a countless number of attacks in a single instant. Individual bug bites might be so weak as to be harmless. However, it was hard to dismiss their attacks when a thick layer of them hung onto Mary's armor.

She had no choice but to force her crimson energy to surge out every dozen seconds. The ferocious power would exterminate these annoying pests.

However, the lack of blood offerings posed a severe limitation to Mary's regenerative ability. The wounds on her body were recovering at an exceedingly slow rate.

The blood energy reserves within her body rapidly plummeted as well.

The battle between the two adepts had turned into one of attrition with no swift conclusion in sight!